Live Free and/or Die
It is possible that the aftershocks of Timor will resonate in Jakarta. After winning this year's elections, Megawati Sukarnoputri's "Indonesian Democratic Party--Struggle" (PDI-P) is in place to lead the next government, and Megawati herself is striving to be elected Indonesia's next President. But the military actions in Timor cannot be stopped by either Habibie or Megawati. They can only be halted by the one man who controls the military, General Wiranto.
Wiranto is not likely to seek the Presidency himself. If he wanted it, he could have simply taken it when Suharto resigned. But Wiranto, who is making an official visit to Timor on September 5, will certainly attempt to use the trouble in East Timor to ensure that the armed forces maintain a prominent role in Indonesian politics. Currently, the Army is guaranteed 38 seats in the military. Megawati's loose coalition with Abdurrahman Wahid's Nation Awakening Party and Amien Rais' National Mandate Party total about 250 seats; not quite enough for a majority. There are other small parties that could make up the difference, but that would require giving a great deal of influence to many small, relatively unimportant factions. And a deal with the currently ruling Golkar party is out of the question.
That means the military seats could put Megawati in a position of power, which would be a more palatable choice than the alternatives. Whether or not Wiranto bears any direct responsibility for the militia action in Timor (and he probably does not), he does have the ability to put an end to it. Whether or not Wiranto does might depend on the deal he makes with Megawati to ensure that the military continues not only to have guaranteed seats in Parliament, but also continues to have the ear of the President.
The military also wants the power to put down other rebellions in regions of Indonesia that attempt to follow Timor's lead. Other small-scale outbreaks in Aceh and Irian Jaya threaten to stretch the military beyond its capabilities, and if it constrained by Jakarta politics, the military will be helpless to end the violence. This prospect is a mixed bag. On one hand, the military did a tremendous job of keeping East Timor part of Indonesia by killing the Timorese, obviously a scenario which is best avoided. On the other hand, the Indonesian archipelago has over 17,000 islands, and a few isolated revolutions could bring down the
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